How can I build a large Twitter following quickly for marketing my startup?

QUESTION:

How can I build a large Twitter following quickly for marketing my startup? I’ve been trying for months to market my startup using Twitter, and I still have less than 100 followers. My content is compelling, and I tapped all my friends and associates. What else can I do?

ANSWER:

If you’re a celebrity or incredibly lucky, you can build a large Twitter following quickly. Otherwise, you have to resort to more creative methods. One way is to follow other people on Twitter and hope they follow you back. This can work, but it’s very time consuming to do manually. Fortunately, some clever people have automated the process. Twollo, for example, was one of the first sites to offer this service, and they’ve done a very good job.

Twollo basically allows you to follow people by entering keywords that apply to your business, and hopefully they will follow you back. I can attest to the fact that it works because I used it a while back when it was free. So if you want to grow your follower-base and ramp up your Twitter marketing, Twollo is worth considering. Of course, my only regret is that Twollo dropped the free option.

Another favorite Twitter marketing utility is SocialOomph. The site has a horrible UI design, but it offers many great features that are essential if you’re using Twitter to market your startup.

They offer a lot of good things, like Twitter account automation, scheduled Tweets, and keyword alerts. That said, they aren’t entirely free. The basic features are free, but you have to pay to get some of the good stuff. If Twitter is a big part of your marketing efforts, it’s probably worth paying. That said, I’m still on the free plan.

TwittGeek is another service I’ve used and like. It allows you to follow people by keyword. And it has a free option, although the free option isn’t automated. You have to pay for that.

GoTwitr is a great serviced. I’ve used it extensively. It offers a really nice “mimic” follow feature and other goodies. This is my favorite tool right now. It’s also free!

Other services you may want to check out are…

FollowFormation is a tool that helps you follow the top people on twitter by city and by interest.

TwiPing lets you create Twitter lists with hundreds of users with a single click.

Hummingbird offers an array of features, including its own version of “smart” follow.

There are some good services here, but none will replace the work that needs to be done to build your core audience. To do that, you need to provide content – lots of content. But make sure the information is useful to someone else i.e. don't talk about your favorite cereal. You should plan to send out 5-10 tweets each day and try to make them high value. You don't have to be original each time. Retweeting is a great way to get information out there, be useful to someone, and become a virtual advocate for another who is more inclined to follow you in return for your generosity. You should also learn the best practices of twitter, such as when is the best time to tweet (evening) and the types of tweets that get the most visibility (data). You'll also want to put some time into integrating your twitter account into other aspects of your business, like your business cards, newsletters, website, and Facebook accounts. We write about these issues a lot on OhMyGov.com and provide training on these topics as well.